A power shear is described in our jointly filed and copending application Ser. No. 072,628 wherein a tool-carrying slide is displaceable in a slide direction between a pair of fixed parallel plates. Normally such a slide is displaced relative to the two plates flanking it by a hydraulic ram having a cylinder resting on the two fixed plates, and having a piston displaceable in the slide direction and connected via a piston rod to an edge of the slide. The ram is normally double-acting so that it can move the slide forwardly and backwardly in the slide direction.
Normally such a machine, which can be used for shearing, punching coping, and carrying out similar metalworking operations on flat plate stock or profile stock of many different types, has its piston rod bolted via a flange arrangement to the edge of the slide. Thus, in the event that one wants to change the slide or the ram that serves as actuator, one must undertake the laborious disassembly of the connection between the piston rod and the slide. Since, however, this connection must be capable of transmitting considerable forces in both directions, it is hitherto been considered impossible to design it for easy disassembly.